![An Important Distinction [Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal]](https://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/1476886340-20161019.png){kind=link}
An old comic that feels oh so relevant in this tumultuous election year.
Source: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/an-important-distinction
An old comic that feels oh so relevant in this tumultuous election year.
Source: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/an-important-distinction
I take issue with the first panel.
To me, patriotism is “I’m going to work on my house because I love the people who live in it and I want them all to have the best house.”
If you start from the assumption that your country is the “best” that’s nationalism and straying too close to the roots of xenophobia.
Yeah, it’s maybe the greatest difference between Patriotism and Nationalism: the former is all about “I’ll work to make my house the best house” whilst the latter is about “Yield to me, as I am from the best house”.
Patriots want their country to be the best country, Nationalist want to extract gains from living in what they think is the best country.
You’ll notice that the only things Nationalists ever do for their country are things like “stopping others from coming here” or “celebrating the greatness of their country”, which aren’t at all about making the country better.
Words are defined by how they’re used.